


Adaptation

by perezimovat



Category: Marvel, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk
Genre: Angst, Gen, Pain, Runaway, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perezimovat/pseuds/perezimovat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Bruce's transformations and how on each one he gains control more and more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is partly based on the Hulk Season One comic, but not necessarily needs to be read to understand what's going on.

It had been two days since the accident with the Bannerbomb and from what had happened at the testing ground, there had a been a general consensus around the facility that Bruce Banner had wanted the bomb to fail. It wasn't true of course, Bruce thought to himself miserably as he tapped the screen watching numbers fly past. He had become a laughing stock. A failure. Everything that he had tried to avoid with his work. Silent as the grave and not wanting to address the glares and whispers that the other science officers were giving him. 

He leaned back. He wished he had been killed. Or at least seriously injured enough to get General Ross off his back. But no avail. No trauma, no radiation sickness, nothing. Absolutely fuck all. Bruce pulled off his glasses and looked around the labratory. He caught a glance from one of the younger members of his science team. He made a dark face.

"What are you looking at?" He barked, getting annoyed.

She jumped and looked down, her cheeks glowing red. Bruce made a grunting noise and pushed himself up off the chair, walking over to her. "Sorry," He said to the assistant. "I didn't mean to get angry."

"He's says that, but he doesn't mean it," A voice behind him drawled. Bruce sighed and drooped his head, before looking around at Betty Ross, who's arms were folded and a clipboard hanging from her hand. Her dark hair pulled up in a knot and a smirk playing on her red lips.

"What do you want Betty?"

"A word, Banner," Betty said sternly. Bruce hated it when she called him that. He was Bruce. Not Banner. Just Bruce. His eyes fell sadly as he knew vaguely what was going to happen. He grabbed his glasses from the table and put them on. Betty beckoned him with a finger and pulled him out into the corridor where a few a few soldiers jogged by with guns on their backs. One glanced at Bruce but he ignored it the best he could. He tucked his hands into his lab coat and blinked out at her with sad eyes.

"What is it Betty?" He asked. "I was busy,"

"Yes, I saw." Betty said, unfolding her arms and flicking through the papers on her clipboard absent-mindedly. "How long left do you have before you move from sulking to brooding?"

"About a week," Bruce replied sarcastically. 

"Well you might want to speed it up, Dad's pissed. He's looking for blood."

"You mind having a bit more compassion?" Bruce asked. "My life's work has just fallen apart in front of my eyes and I don't know what to do."

Betty raised an eyebrow. "Sorry," She dropped her papers and tucked her clipboard under her arm and folded them. She spread her legs slightly, her boots hitting the floor looking down at them for a moment. "Compassion right." She looked up and smirked. "Dad's pissed and he's looking for blood."

Bruce sighed. As much as he liked Betty and they got on well, it wasn't quite the relationship he wanted. "Betty..."

"Also," She gave a sigh and handed him the clipboard, her face softening slightly. "Something has been triggering alerts in the outposts and fake village. We don't know what it is."

Bruce sighed, pushing his glasses further up his nose and reading the files with his lips pursed together. "Are you sure it's not one of our chimpanzees?" He asked. "They've gone missing and could probably trip the alarms."

"Well yeah," Betty said. "That's what I thought." She waited for another group of soldiers to go by before moving to Bruce's side, she flicked a few pages through the report and they came to the damage photographs. "That was taken a few hours ago," She said. "I have no idea what caused it but it was big."

Bruce cleared his throat and stared at the picture. "I don't know Betty,"

"Bruce I want to keep you in observation tonight," Betty said.

"What? Why?"

"Because like it or not you got hit by nearly 100 tonnes of Gamma radiation and no one, not even the mighty Bruce Banner can walk away unscathed." Betty said, she rolled her eyes. "Bruce what are you smiling about?"

He chuckled. "You called me mighty," He said. He chuckled again.

Betty licked her lips and let out a sigh of exasperation, her eyes flickering slightly. "Are you done?" She asked. 

"Yeah, we're good," Bruce shrugged.

"I still want you in observation."

"Oh Betty for fucks sake, I'm fine. I'M FINE! Look at me! I look fine, I feel fine." He pulled his hands out of his lab coat and spread them out sideways. Turning slowly on his heel, he did a full circle so that Betty could see just how fine he was. When he finished, he looked at Betty who jumped, being caught looking at him with a tilted head and a small smile. He pursed his lips, unsure of what had just happened but didn't dwell on it, tucking his hands back into his lab coat.

"I still want you under-"

"What part of NO don't you understand?" Bruce asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

"What part of you being under orders do you not understand?" Betty challenged. "Look, it'll get dad of my back and yours. Once you sort out the paperwork you can go find work elsewhere."

"Betty this is all I've worked for. No one wants to hire a pathetic scientist."

"Tony Stark might,"

"Betty,"

"I can't do anything, okay Bruce?" She said. "We'll get this fixed." With that she left. Bruce huffed and leaned against the the wall and pulled off his glasses.

He checked his watch and shook his head, the time nearing 8pm. Exhausted, ill with anger and fear, Bruce's physical health might have been doing good, but his mental state felt like it was decaying. He kept himself against the wall for a moment before a sharp shooting pain went down his left side. He topped over, cursing and bellowing out. A few passers-by stopped, curious, but none ran to help him. Bruce let out a groan as two soldiers finally relented and hauled him up. 

"Get a grip Banner," One said.

A few of the witnesses were whispering. Bruce felt his blood pressure rise with anger. What the fuck where they staring at? Why couldn't they leave him- the thought had no time to finish itself. Bruce keeled over again, his hand on his stomach as he vomited out what was left of his chicken salad lunch. He was now unable to see, everything going fuzzy and a deafening noise in his ears.  _"LET ME OUT,"_

Bruce pulled himself up, clinging to the walls. He had heard that voice befoe in his nightmares and his waking hours. 

Bunker.

He had to get to his bunker.

Bruce pushed past the officers, barely able to stand and made his way from the facility. The air outside was cool and sharp and hit his lungs like knives. He keeled over again, crawling this time. With one final push of strength, Bruce got away from the facility. He leaned up against a rock, panting heavily. Before he knew what he was happening, he was screaming. He fell to the ground and buried his head under his arm, feeling like his head was splitting into two. Another one of his shrieks filled the valley and he struggled up. Whatever was happening, Bruce had to find somewhere safe. 

He staggered around aimlessly before finding one of the abandoned testing buildings. Yanking the door open he fled inside. Holding his head, his glasses slipped from his face and he fell with a crunch. Unable to keep whatever it was in him fighting, Bruce blacked out completely but not before going through the most excruciating pain imaginable.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Hulk is 2 times as large as any human being, with the mass of at least one and a half elephants and the physical strength of a builders wrecking ball working at full capacity. It means that the Hulk's muscles, bone structure and organs are also twice as big. But in order for them to grow during the painful transformations, they first shrink. And in order to shrink, they have to stop.

So when Bruce Banner goes through the process of becoming the Hulk, he suffers a series of mini-organ failures. He should have died at least three times. But no, before he gets a chance to his vital organs readjust to Hulk capacity and keep him going. His lesser important organs are the last of the things to change.

Whilst Bruce Banner is having his organ failure, his bones are breaking, crunching and forming around the increased mass of muscle that occurs. There is no other reason to grow taller than the fact that he simply would not be able to move otherwise. 

When Bruce Banner goes through a transformation, his brain also has to double in size. But it does not retain any of the scientists vast knowledge. Instead the neurons fire off wildly trying to flood his system with dopamine and keep him from pain, but it shuts down and the neurons die leaving him with the simple functions of speech and slightly less than lower brain intelligence. The first few times this happened, Bruce blacked out because of the pain only to wake with a mouth full of bile and a foul feeling nesting in his skin. Now that this happened a lot more often than he would have liked to, the black outs before the transformation became less frequent. Which he hated.

Bruce was cradled on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Unsure of what happened, but he knew all these things are going to start off any time soon. Terrified, he huddled in a corner, his arms over his head and his heart monitor racing quickly before completely stopping. He is having heart failure. It's only for a few seconds and then his cheap heart monitor breaks as it's unable to contain the sheer volume of the Hulk''s heart beat. 

He let out a loud groan as pain shot through his bones and hit his muscles with aches and a rippling tidal wave of pain hitting everything he had. "No," He wailed pathetically. Each transformation made him want to hang on a little longer. He couldn't bear waking up once again to find himself in another foreign territory with no clothes and no clue and no money. He didn't want to see on the local news about the terror of the green monster rampaging through cities and destroying everything in its path. He didn't want to be chased again by General Ross and his army of Hulk Busters.

He clung to the thought of Betty and her farewell kiss and how she had tried to keep in contact with him over the last few months. He clung to the image of her lips and her eyes. He repeated her voice in his head like a bad tune, praying that it would offer some comfort.

Bruce roared, looking up at the wall in front of him. His bellow hit the bricks with a force and even though not visible to the naked eye broke some of the molecules holding together the concrete vibrated. His lips turning a nasty shade of green. The pigmentaton of his skin changed due to the increase of adrenaline working in correlation with his organ failure and the gamma radiation poisioning and was of course when he realiszed it, horrifying beyond measure.

With the last breaking of his bones and changing of his physiological structure, the Hulk emerged from where he once knelt. Hulk saw Banner's glasses on the floor and with a grunt stepped on them, before running off into the night.


End file.
